Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan (R) is accompanied by top military officials as he attends an official ceremony to mark the 85th anniversary of Republic Day at the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of secular Turkey, in Ankara October 29, 2008. REUTERS/Umit Bektas (TURKEY)

Turkey needs an urban, secular and liberal political movement that can successfully utilize the inherent potential of society to complete the modernization process while addressing the Kurdish and secularist-anti-secularist clash, according to Dutch historian and Turkey expert Erik Jan Zürcher.

The General Staff, which has recently been the target of harsh media criticism for having failed to prevent a deadly terrorist attack on a military outpost in eastern Turkey which left 17 soldiers dead, responded to the accusations on Monday.

“ I know what you’re thinking. ‘Did the lira go down six points or up five?’ Well, to tell you the truth, in all this market confusion I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is a global crisis, the most powerful one in the world, and could blow your party’s chances clean away at the next election, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”

The 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Turkish Republic, which was marked with celebrations across the country yesterday, led many to question the course of development taken by the republic and discuss its shortcomings, in addition to its achievements.

Is that an AK-47 or are you just happy to see me?Turkish gendarme soldiers prepare to change shifts with their colleagues as they walk in front of Silivri prison, some 70 km (43 miles) west of Istanbul, during the trial of the shadowy-right wing group Ergenekon October 27, 2008. The trial of Ergenekon resumed with 86 defendants, including former army officers, politicians, and journalists, accused of plotting assassinations and bombings to spark a military coup against the government. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

A week in Istanbul can hardly fail to be an enriching experience for the intellectually curious visitor – even more when this great city, and Turkey generally, is at the heart of so many of the world’s shaping concerns of faith and politics. This was certainly the case for me, when I stayed in Istanbul as a guest of the London-based Dialogue Society which supports the ideas and aims of the influential Islamic thinker Fethullah Gülen.

Governments are responsible not only for fighting against terror but also for leading the nation within the guidelines of democracy and for keeping demands from security institutions within these guidelines.

The reasons given by the Constitutional Court for its decision regarding the headscarf ban really work to convey the sense that in Turkey we have passed through the concepts of rights, justice and democracy, and moved on instead to a different sort of state.

Turkey needs an urban, secular and liberal political movement that can successfully utilize the inherent potential of society to complete the modernization process while addressing the Kurdish and secularist-anti-secularist clash, according to Dutch historian and Turkey expert Erik Jan Zürcher. "

It’s the Republic’s birthday today. It was born 85 years ago out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire. To turn Turkey into a modern, western nation state, that was Atatürk’s aim, and that’s what he accomplished. For days now, there have been banners over the streets and on bridges, wishing people a happy ‘cumhuriyet